Caseks-Computer-Corner

[Mainter]

Originally posted by Milton@Dec 15 2005, 07:23 PM

I'm having a problem with bittorrent. It keeps giving me these errors like "operation timeout" or "no connections have been made with any trackers." Any idea what's going on with it?

Quoted post

 

 

yer firewall is blocking it if you got windows XP SP2 this is one of the things it gave you (stupid dosent work) but just go to

 

start

setting

control panel

security settings

windows firewall

exceptions and allow yer bittorrent client

this might have to do with your antivirus software firewall too so check that too

 

 

possible to that there is no seeders for the thing that you are trying to get

[Mainter]

Originally posted by Herbivore@Dec 14 2005, 09:05 AM

What's an ACID test?

 

Also, I'm a little surprised by those web browser test results. For me, IE loads a LOT quicker than Firefox. And if you have ActiveX turned off completely, IE is pretty safe, no?

Quoted post

 

 

 

did you do any of them tweaks? if so how they work for you?

[mr.yuck]

Thats fantastic about the whole lowfi thing. Everything is back to normal for now. But why would it switch on me automatically? Either way im gonna give fire fox a try and see where that takes me. Right now Im trying to get rid of 280 pieces of spy and ad ware and other crap on the ol puter.

[richard_vagina]

yuck: firefox will keep you from getting 90% of that shit guaranteed.

[Mainter]

Originally posted by mr.yuck@Dec 15 2005, 08:58 PM

Thats fantastic about the whole lowfi thing. Everything is back to normal for now. But why would it switch on me automatically? Either way im gonna give fire fox a try and see where that takes me. Right now Im trying to get rid of 280 pieces of spy and ad ware and other crap on the ol puter.

Quoted post

 

it didnt swich you had to click it by mistake it wont swich by its self also you shouldnt keep yer cookies wipe them bitches out

[richard_vagina]

oops.

[Mainter]

what?

[Mainter]

kinda early to be smokin casek

[Mainter]

Originally posted by richard_vagina@Dec 15 2005, 09:04 PM

oops.

Quoted post

 

yeah you better edit that shit lol

[richard_vagina]

http://www.ohgizmo.com/2005/12/13/senslip-...-that-foreskin/

 

^ artificial foreskin

 

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/14/sne...etup/index.html

 

^nvidia quad (hot shit)

[Mainter]

http://www.picotux.com/ smallest linux computer

[dumy]

hey my iBook is behaving perfectly fine and hasn't crashed since..well, ever..

 

what gives?

 

 

 

also, what is teh spyware?

[richard_vagina]

YOUR COMPLUTER IS CRAPTASTIC!

[Mainter]

Originally posted by richard_vagina@Dec 15 2005, 09:07 PM

http://www.ohgizmo.com/2005/12/13/senslip-...-that-foreskin/

 

^ artificial foreskin

 

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/14/sne...etup/index.html

 

^nvidia quad (hot shit)

Quoted post

 

nvidia is bad ass

[richard_vagina]

i\\\'ve always used ati products...perhaps i shiould try an nvidia next time i buy a vidcard

 

edit...120gb HD deal 80$ bones from bestbuy

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?sk...d=1055388011277

[Mainter]

ok im really tempted to make a big ass virus just for dumy's Crapple

[richard_vagina]

dumy is lying. he\'s just mad because white girls won\'t give him play anymore because he owns a gay mans computer

[Mainter]

i know why he dont like PCs PCs come in black he wants to stick with the white crapple like his women :biglaugh:

[richard_vagina]

dumy\'s computer is gay.

[John Birch]

Originally posted by Mainter+Dec 16 2005, 02:14 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Mainter - Dec 16 2005, 02:14 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-richard_vagina@Dec 15 2005, 09:07

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/14/sne...etup/index.html

 

^nvidia quad (hot shit)

Quoted post

[/b]

 

nvidia is bad ass

Quoted post

[/b]

 

 

 

if I build my own desktop, should I wait for this thing? or too expensive?

[Mainter]

Significant Performance Boost For XP

 

Do you have obscene amounts of RAM? Do you want to make the very best use of it all? There are tens of thousands of websites offering performance tweaks for XP and you could spend the next week or more researching the ones you might like to perform, or you can save yourself a lot of bother and read this article. There are hundreds of XP tweaks, but you only need the half a dozen listed here to obtain a significant performance boost. The rest of the tweaks afford only minor and often indiscernible performance benefits.

 

Comments from visitors who have employed these tweaks are included at the end of the page.

 

Tweak #1: Graphical User Interface and Themes

 

I have refrained from expressing opinion on this website but the default Windows XP theme calls out for comment. It is beyond me to comprehend how the person who decided on the ugly and sickly default Windows XP theme may have actually kept their job at Microsoft. It is childish in the extreme and my skin crawls when I see it. In fact, the theme is so bad that Windows XP also crawls when it is being used, even with a high-end video card installed.

 

Make the following two changes to see a real and perceptible improvement in performance;

 

Disable XP Themes

 

1. Right click the desktop and select Properties.

 

2. In the dropdown listbox under Theme:, select Windows Classic and Apply.

 

Disable XP Visual Effects

 

1. Open the System Control Panel applet.

 

2. On the Avanced tab, select Settings in the Performance frame.

 

3. On the Visual Effects tab, select Adjust for best performance and Apply.

 

4. Turn on (select) Smooth edges of screen fonts.

 

5. Turn on any other options you think you cannot live without and Apply.

 

Tweak #2: Enable ClearType

 

Performance isn't just about the speed of your system. It includes readability of screen text. ClearType provides support for improved font display on color LCD monitors, high-quality TFT displays and standard CRT screens. Change your display from this:

 

To this:

 

To enable ClearType and make any adjustments to suit your eyes, go to the Microsoft Typography pages and follow the simple instructions.

 

Tweak #3: Use NTFS

 

NTFS is the recommended file system for Windows XP and provides a number of benefits in terms of functionality, security, stability, availability, reliability, and performance. There are very few reasons to persist with FAT32. Read the NTFS, FAT32 and the Conversion Process article on this site for more information.

 

Tweak #4: Disable Last Access Timestamp

 

Whenever XP reads a file, it stamps the file with the date and time of the access. This feature has its place but is not required for normal use unless you rely on the date of last access for backup purposes. Timestamping a file that has just been read means that a write access has to be made to disk, so every time a read is executed, a corresponding write is also executed.

 

At the command prompt, enter the following then reboot;

 

FSUTIL behavior set disablelastaccess 1

 

Those of us who read and write real English need to take note of the American spelling of the BEHAVIOR parameter.

 

To turn timestamping back on, repeat the command but replace the 1 with 0.

 

Tweak #5: Memory Management and Processor Scheduling

 

256MB RAM is the absolute minimum to take advantage of these changes. Those with faster Pentium 4's should see a significant performance boost. You should not perform any registry edits unless you know what you are doing. At the very least, you should consider performing a backup before proceeding.

 

Memory Management: Kernel Paging and Cache Tuning

 

The "DisablePagingExecutive" entry in the registry prevents the kernel (the core of the XP OS) from being rolled out to the page file. The effect of this part of the tweak is to cause the OS to cache the OS Kernel and its entourage to RAM instead of to disk, which makes XP far more responsive.

 

The "LargeSystemCache" registry entry forces XP to allocate all but 4MB of system memory, that is system memory, not avaliable RAM, to the file system cache. The remaining 4MB of system memory is used for disk caching, though XP will allocate more memory if it is needed.

 

A modern hard disk will transfer sequential data to and from disk at up to 40MB per second, or even faster on some drives, but the LargeSystemCache tweak means that effective transfer speeds of 1GB per second or more can be obtained, depending on the amount of RAM in your system and its operating speed. This is achieved because the LargeSystemCache modification causes the OS to store data read from disk in RAM. It means that the OS is always using the optimum amount of RAM instead of leaving it untouched for future use that may or may not occur. Without this part of the tweak, 200MB or more of RAM in a typical 512MB machine goes completely unused.

 

Some I/O intensive applications may take a hit in performance from changing the LargeSystemCache, so this particular component of the tweak should not be applied to a system that is running either SQL Server or Internet Information Server (IIS) because both of those applications perform their own caching.

 

Start regedit and navigate to the following key:

 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]

 

Add these two lines, save the changes and reboot;

 

"DisablePagingExecutive"=dword:00000001

 

"LargeSystemCache"=dword:00000001

 

To see the effects of this part of the tweak, launch a large, memory hungry application. Any of the Microsoft Office suite of applications will do. Let the application load then exit from it. Fasten your safety harness then launch the application again.

 

I have a striped RAID 0 array of two ATA100 7,200 RPM disks. The array was lounging around on holiday in the sun and not doing much with a SiSoft Sandra Drive Index of 28,000. The two registry changes above caused the DI to triple from the original 28,000 to an upper mark of 85,000. A similar but scaled down performance increase can be expected for ATA 33/66 disks.

 

Memory Management: Separate Window Processes

 

This setting provides significantly faster performance and affords greater application stability. Contrary to popular belief, this part of the tweak causes multiple instances of the same application to execute in their own process and memory space, not just Windows Explorer. Of course, the cost for improved performance and stability is memory since the application and its attendant DLLs are loaded separately for each instance. If you have 512MB of RAM or more, this part of the tweak is highly recommended because if say Internet Explorer or Word crashes, other Internet Explorer and Word instances will remain unaffected.

 

1. Start Windows Explorer.

 

2. Select Tools.

 

3. Select Folder Options then select the View tab.

 

4. Check the Launch folder windows in separate process box and Apply.

 

Processor Scheduling

 

This part of the tweak is impossible to explain without getting into the technical ins and outs of binary values, bit pairs and bit masks. Suffice it to say, this part of the tweak forces short, variable length processor timeslices to be allocated to foreground processes three times more often than those timeslices given to background processes.

 

Start regedit and navigate to the following key:

 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\PriorityControl]

 

Change the dword value of Win32PrioritySeparation, save the changes and reboot;

 

"Win32PrioritySeparation"=dword:00000026

 

NOTE: The Win32PrioritySeparation value of 26 is hexadecimal. this corresponds to 38 decimal.

 

As with the cache tuning part of the tweak, this particular component of the tweak should not be applied to a system that is running either SQL Server or Internet Information Server (IIS) unless you are certain that you want to slow down those background processes.

 

For more information on how this tweak uses binary values and bit pairs, read any of these articles on Google.

 

Tweak #6: Turn Off the Indexing Service

 

The Windows Search Companion has been very much maligned by the technical community, and with good reason. It is, in my opinion, a classic example of software that both uses resources and operates at speeds that are inversely proportional to the function that it performs and the value it provides. It is slow, ineffectual and tantamount to useless for serious searching because it deliberately ignores certain files and directories wthout allowing the user to decide what should and should not be searched. In short, the Search Companion is dysfunctional bloatware.

 

Whilst the Windows Search Companion will still function without the indexing service, some performance benefits can be obtained by utilising the indexing service. However the indexing service builds a SQL database of keywords it finds in files. This means that to get at the information compiled by the indexing service, the Search Companion sends an SQL query to the database, which then returns the information to the Search Companion. This can be a frustratingly slow process, even on very fast machines.

 

Besides the feature and performance issues with Search Companion, the indexing service works in the background, scouring almost every file that it finds. On a new system, the indexing service can take days to settle down. This is because the service puts a low priority on its work. Despite this low priority, the indexing service can cause serious performance degradation, especially in lower-end machines because the computer's hard disk runs continuously. If you have Office XP, you may find this Microsoft Office KB article of interest.

 

A much better searching alternative is to turn off the indexing service and use Agent Ransack by David Vest.

 

From the Agent Ransack website: Agent Ransack is a free tool for finding files and information on your hard drive fast and efficiently. When searching the contents of files Agent Ransack displays the text found so you can quickly browse the results without having to separately open each file! Agent Ransack provides compelling advantages over similar search tools: Regular expressions that allow complex rule based searches. Immediate contents results view. Various wizards to walk the user through the searching process. Agent Ransack is provided FREE of charge for the benefit of the Windows community. If you find it useful please register it, free of charge.

 

To disable the indexing service;

 

1. Click Start, Run, type services.msc then press enter or click OK.

 

2. Scroll to the "Indexing Service" in the right-hand pane and double-click it.

 

3. Change the Startup type to Manual or Disable and Apply.

 

4. Click the Stop button and wait for the service to stop then click OK.

 

User Comments

 

W????n S. wrote:

 

Love this info! Well I have to admit that this thing just freakin rocks right now!!!

 

 

 

Bill wrote: I agree with this poast, on my 1800 AMD XP with 520 meg ram and 32 meg AGP graphics with allready 4 of 6 applied, before the article came, the other two (#4&5) make a difference

 

 

 

Devon Miles wrote: Great article, same for the rest of the site, good advice.

 

 

 

Gravel Rash wrote: A very clear concise guide to the most useful XP tweaks. Some well known, some more obscure, but all seem to have the desired result. Well written and well executed - just what we have come to expect from you. Three cheers!

 

 

 

Lord Gazwad of Grantham - MVP (Special Forces) wrote: Yeah, what I hadn't done already I just did, the system seems snappier, I reckon its down to the disk writes being reduced, I keep the themes and the effects though, even if they are fisher price.

 

Other Tweaks

 

Bill wrote: Great article very useful, good background info on how the tweak work's, but how do you think about cleaning up the startup section in the system configuration utility as a performance tweak? Many users load a lot of shit on boot.

 

AH! Good question. Those who need to halt startup processes do so for one or more of three main reasons, I'll leave out the obvious troubleshooting reason;

 

A) to recover RAM

 

B) to increase boot time

 

C) to recover operating performance

 

The article clearly states you need to have the RAM to burn, so that puts A) out because if you have RAM to burn, you don't need to waste time trying to recover it.

 

The objective of the article is operating performance, not faster startup time. You only get the benefit of fast startup once after every start, so that puts B) out.

 

That leaves C)... Idle processes are just that. Idle. They take up little to no processor time unless they are being used. In other words, it's almost a complete furphy to disable the majority of startup processes and unwanted tasks to get to performance nirvanah. All that unused tasks do is consume RAM. So given A), there is not much point in disabling any of them unless one is misbehaving. See the High CPU Usage Problems article on this site for more information. Of course, this advice will just go unheeded if you are suffering obsessive compulsive disorder and simply have to remove them just because they're there and they annoy you.

 

If you really must tweak your system beyond the major boost provided in this article, you might find the following resources helpful:

 

sanx.org contains 140+ tips and tweaks for Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, including performance enhancements, security tips, registry hacks, tuning advice, hardware tuning and many others.

 

WinTasks Process Library: Use this resource to decide what common Windows processes can be disabled. This link provides a subset of the most popular processes listed in WinTasks Process Library. Scroll down the page to find the list.

 

User Tip #76 at is-it-true.org lists a number of services that can be disabled. Also provides reason why you shouldn't disable the services.

 

The Registry Edits for Windows XP page at theeldergeek.com provides enough tweaks to keep even the phreakiest tweakers happy for days on end. There are about a hundred registry hacks listed for applications, desktop, file system, hardware, Internet, logon, network, system and more.

 

Windows XP A to Z has a page full of performance tweaks for the tweak phreak. Note that the page lists the Intel Application Accelerator (IAA) as a performance improvement. Many users have obtained very significant improvements from using IAA, but others have had significant crashing issues with it, myself included. If you have an Intel chipset and you have applied the "inf installer" that should have been supplied with your motherboard then you should not need the IAA. If you decide to try IAA, you would be well advised to image your disk and ensure the Recovery Console is installed before you proceed.

 

Force IRQ Priority

 

This is a tweak that falls into the category of imperceptible, but some may find it useful if a hardware device is being a bit of a laggard. This tweak can be applied to multiple IRQs and the best use you could make of it is to try to improve the performance of devices that share an IRQ over non-shared IRQs.

 

The effect of this change is to improve the performance of devices on the nominated IRQ. It is often used to boost the performance of the System CMOS/real time clock, normally residing on IRQ8.

 

To change the priority of a different IRQ, replace 8 in IRQ8Priority with the appropriate IRQ number. To change the priority of additional devices, simply add appropriate keys.

 

Start regedit and navigate to the following key:

 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\PriorityControl]

 

Create the new entry, save the changes and reboot;

 

"IRQ8Priority"=dword:0000001

 

If you are not certain that the System CMOS/real time clock resides on IRQ8 on your system, check it by selecting the properties of System CMOS/real time clock in Device Manager.

[richard_vagina]

edit: for john birch

 

 

it\\\'s $383.00 at newegg.com

[Mainter]

An unfortunate problem may be on the way. As adware, spyware and browser hijackers have become more sophisticated, antispyware programs have had to use more sophisticated means to catch them. Unfortunately, this may cause conflicts with antivirus programs using the same methods.

 

Antivirus programs historically have done a poor job of cleaning or even detecting spyware, although that has improved recently. Antispyware programs generally do not bother to detect viruses and trojans, since that is not in their mandate. For this reason, most people (sensible people anyway) have both antispyware and antivirus programs on their computer.

 

A very sophisticated, if low-level, technique used by antivirus software to catch viruses is to scan at the kernel level. The kernel is the lowest level of an operating system. By scanning at this low level, it leaves very little room for a virus to hide.

 

A number of antispyware companies are planning to introduce kernel-level scanning in their products. There really is no way to avoid it. The line between adware, spyware, viruses and trojans has virtually disappeared.

 

All of these types of parasites have poached each other's methods to replicate and to hide. Only the purpose of this unwanted software determines what it is called these days. The antispyware programs have to keep up, if they are to be of any use.

 

This is causing some concern in the antivirus industry. Two programs, both scanning at the kernel level at the same time, can crash a computer. Every antivirus company warns customers against using two different antivirus programs at the same time. People may end up having to make a hard decision: antispyware or antivirus?

 

The best way to avoid this potential problem may be cooperation between the antispyware and antivirus industries. An industry standard may have to be hammered out for kernel-level scanner drivers.

 

The kernel-level drivers can be written in such a way that, if more than one program is trying to access them, the drivers will juggle the requests to avoid a conflict. Two scanners would not be using the same resources at the same time and a system crash would be avoided.

 

The only other option would be for the antispyware and antivirus industries to encroach directly onto each other's territory. They would become direct competitors, with each side detecting both viruses and spyware.

 

As it stands now, antispyware programs do a poor job of detecting viruses and worms, while antivirus programs do only a fair job of detecting spyware. I don't see it as being in the best interests of the end users for each side to try and do the other's job. I hope the companies in both industries also see it that way and decide to work together.

[Mainter]

so after reading that (unlikley) use the antivirus software first before you use the antispyware it takes longer to do the virus scan BUT when you do this this lowers the problems later down the road

[Mainter]

THIS IS TO DUMBASS I MEAN DUMY

 

READ IT AND UNDERSTAND IT

THEN SHUT THE HELL UP ABOUT YER CRAPPLE

 

Sophos says Apple good security choice 2:39PM

 

Experts at UK security company Sophos suggest Apple might be the best route to security for the masses - that is, until consumers all buy one

UK security company's senior technology consultant Graham Cluley rolled out the damning virus statistics for 2005, showing that with a 48 per cent rise in new viruses, buying a Windows box has never been more risky.

 

This year saw nearly 16,000 new viruses added to the Sophos database. It's a recognition of the responsiveness and efficiency with which the virus underground operates, using a variety of techniques such as using different packaging algorithms, releasing multiple virus variants simultaneously and tweaking old versions to broaden the scope for successful infection.

 

Last month saw the biggest slew of new viruses on record, with some 1,940 new signatures added to the Sophos library. And with so much advice and code available online, it's never been easier to add to this list. 'It's kind of like open-source,' said Cluley of the ease with which it is possible to access and edit viral code off the Net. 'There is a problem with too much information being out there.'

 

And it's the ease with which viruses can now be written in conjunction with a generally homogenous computing environment that is the biggest hurdle for computer security.

 

Virus writers can now be far more opportunistic. The massive numbers of Windows computers hooked up to broadband connections are a big, big target. Whether it's spamming campaigns exploiting avian bird-flu hype, 419 and phishing scams on the London bombings or public proof of concept code for a software flaw, malware authors can initiate a campaign within hours.

 

Cluley is full of praise for Microsoft however - particularly for the success of Windows Service Pack 2. 'Microsoft should be applauded for improving its operating system, because it has made the Internet a safer place,' he said.

 

Plug an unprotected XP computer to the Internet and there's only a six per cent chance of avoiding infection within an hour. Add in SP2 and that figure plummets.

 

Yet that's clearly not the end of the story. And Microsoft itself is concerned over its own figures showing that barely 30 per cent of customers are running up to date antivirus software.

 

Cluley too thinks that much of the virus infections are within the consumer rather than business space, with millions of computers running out-of-date antivirus software, if they're running any security software at all.

 

So something has gone wrong. Two-thirds of Microsoft's own customers are not getting the message and shoring up the systems against the viral tide. No wonder it's bringing out its own OneCare antivirus solution for Windows users.

 

But perhaps they see it as Microsoft's job to provide a secure platform in the first place, and not their responsibility to dig into their wallets to patch up the bits Microsoft got wrong.

 

Cluley said that a recent survey it took on the Zotob worm revealed that 35 per cent of the businesses polled thought it was all Microsoft's fault.

 

But Cluley disagreed, on the basis that it's impossible to guarantee a perfect flawless system. It's the homogeneity that is the problem.

 

'If everyone used the same antivirus, then that's a disaster too,' he said.

 

In fact, he thinks Microsoft is now doing such a good job on the security front that attackers will increasingly turn to applications and tools such as Google's Desktop Search as the vector for the next wave of attacks.

 

'They'll be looking for the add-ons and plug-ins that are popular, and used by lots of people, to find holes in and exploit,' he said.

 

But there are other options. Plug an unprotected Apple or Linux box onto the Internet, and you can expect to see the infection rate flatline, said Cluley.

 

That's not to say there are no viruses for Mac OS X or the various Linux distributions, but Windows viruses dwarf them.

 

'It wouldn't really work for businesses,' said Cluley, 'But for consumers I think [Apple] is quite good.'

 

You can accuse it of security through obscurity, but in a world where 70 per cent of Windows users don't feel the responsibility of securing their computers, perhaps they are better off with a less targeted platform. Perhaps they don't deserve Windows.

[guerillaeye]

have you guys used http://www.insecure.org/nmap/? any comments?

[richard_vagina]

haha i just sscanned the prophet with it...neat.

there are easier tools.

[guerillaeye]

i work for a tel-com. dude i worked with (hes since been let go on unrelated terms) was on the company dialup account, and scanned the company server for port weakness from his home. next day he gets called into the mans office and called out on it... he said he was just "trying out a new security program" and apologized... but could you imagine the shit that must have been running through his mind when the boss says "I traced your hack into the company server last night..."

[John Birch]

I just wanted to thank you guys casek and mainter for this thread...I never really used cpu's until grad school. Before that I handwrote papers, did research in libraries and only used computers to write papers in word...

 

but over the last 3 years I've become a pretty good "amatuer" computer expert and this thread helps me alot, esp when I don't feel like trolling through google looking for the right answers to simple questions...

 

I was starting to get sick of 12oz over the last 12 months, this brought me (and my evil sarcastic humor) back...

 

 

now I look soooooo good for my clients when they introduce me to their IT folks and I know what I'm talking about (or at least the lingo). I'm still trying to figure out the world of server based database management though...

 

 

*no gay

[WatcherSB]

awesome thread

thanks gentlemen